Directors Present: Andrew, Rona, Bruce, Derrick. Alexandra
Neighbourhood House
1) Call to order at 7:33 PM
2) Presentations: 2:1) Carrie Barron, City of Surrey -
Engineering Department.
The Government of Canada has launched the Disaster Mitigation and
Adaptation Fund, (DMAF), a national merit based program that will invest $2
billion to support large scale infrastructure projects to help communities
better manage the risks of disasters triggered by natural hazards.
Eligible investments aim to reduce the socio-economic, environmental and
cultural impacts of natural hazards and extreme weather events when considering
current and potential future climate change impacts.
The objective is to achieve increased critical asset and community
resilience. Natural and/or structural infrastructure solutions must work
systematically to reduce the identified common risk.
Surrey’s objective: “Reducing coastal flood vulnerability in the coastal
lowlands of the City of Surrey, City of Delta and Semiahmoo First Nation in
British Columbia, through structural and nature-based infrastructure works”.
The common hazards addressed through the proposed projects are coastal
flooding and sea level rise adaptation.
The City of Surrey has been successful in securing the largest amount of
DMAF funding of any municipality in Canada with a list of 13 proposed projects
over 10 years. Three key projects are of particular interest to Crescent Beach
residents.
a) Crescent Beach Coastal Drainage
Improvements.
-
Almost
tripled the budget to expand the drainage system improvement beyond the current
plan - with a further installation of 3 Km of perforated pipe and 1 Km of storm
pipe. The potential phasing is to get Sullivan St. done by 2021. (There will be no additional work this year beyond
the current stage 2 project). Then to consider half of the remaining area of
Crescent Beach, based on overlapping the engineering with the archeological.
(Do not have enough money to complete the whole of Crescent Beach). The detailed plans will be communicated as
they are developed.
b) Nicomekl Riverfront Park.
-
To
establish a continuous 3 Km section of parkland from the Elgin Rd sea-dam out
to 40th Ave. with board walks and park. An innovative nature based
approach to flood mitigation, accepting and conveying flood waters through the
park, adapting the eco system to be flood tolerant and providing community
access to and onto the water.
There will be another
open house this summer now the City has the money for the work.
c) Replace the Nicomekl river bride on
King George and the Elgin Rd sea-dam.
-
The
two 70+ years old bridges and the 100 year+ sea-dam are all vulnerable to
overtopping. The plan is to replace the
two bridges with a multi-lane bridge and move the sea-dam adjacent to the new
bridge and provide improved fish passage over the dam. This will open Elgin
creek back to the sea. Still have design work to do which will also provide a
pathway under the bridge for pedestrians and cyclists.
The members thanked
Carrie for her presentation with a round of applause.
Responding to a question
regarding where are we with emergency response in the event of a high storm
surge?
-
The
City has the rigid plastic “muscle wall” units in stock which, when filled with
water can be used to temporarily increase the dyke height, and also has locally
stored emergency supplies of rock in the event of a breach.
The muscle wall requires two days to install
and the City is looking towards a better predictive model for weather
forecasting and wind monitoring with the commissioning of two different weather
stations on the bay, hopefully by this winter.
2:2) Morgan
Brewster, Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Station 5.
Formerly called the Coast Guard
Auxiliary, the organization is 100% volunteer staffed and relies totally on
fund raising to equip and to operate. Morgan thanked the CBPOA for the recent
donation.
The organization provides
24 hour, 7 day marine coverage with a $450K vessel housed at the marina. A call
out requires a crew of four and the vessel is on the water within 20 minutes.
There are 35 volunteers and they are never off line.
The average is some 20
call outs annually with typically 10 to 35 per year. Many, thankfully are
benign, a missing person or a boat broken down. With no Coast Guard presence at
Crescent Beach they are the first on scene from the water side to major
incidents – the train line fatality last summer. They were called for the White
Rock pier disaster last winter – it was too stormy to launch the vessel so they
initiated the call to Esquimalt for the helicopter rescue.
Their next fund raising
event is the “Ducktona 5000” on September 14th, when they will be
racing 5000 plastic duckies, 100% of which are subsequently retrieved. Posters
and advertising will be coming out soon.
The message Morgan wished
to leave, with those of us living at the beach and/or frequenting the beach,
is: if you see anything on the beach or
out in/on the water that doesn’t look right - call 911 saying “this is what I’m
seeing here at Crescent Beach”.
The members thanked
Morgan with a round of applause.
3) Motions put.
The motion
was circulated to members on June 16th, 2019, with the notice of the
July 3rd , 2019, meeting, together with two PDFs – the Blackie Spit
Park Master Plan, (1999), and the Blackie Spit Park Master Plan, 2018 Review,
presented at the January 2nd, 2019 General Meeting.
Michael Eyre
gave the background to the working group review. The concern was that the then
on-going, (2017), Review of the Crescent Beach Community Development Plan, (1999),
[Land Use Plan], was not taking into account the Blackie Spit Park Master plan,
(1999).
The working
group review recognized the good values in the Blackie Spit Park plan that are
still applicable today and made the following recommendations regarding the
future of Blackie Spit.
[Recommendations
from the working group presented at the January 2nd CBPOA General
Meeting regarding the future of Blackie Spit:
* Maintain the park vision and objectives in future land
use studies *Continue the active and passive uses as per the master plan
*Continue the day and short term events via City Permit regulation *Address
recommendations included in this report *CBPOA to work closely with the City
per the following:
1. Develop a staged plan to increase parking capacity:
- consider an eastward extension to the small creek
- retain beach front parking and include marked
disability stalls for daily users
- provide definition of vehicle parking rows and spaces
- extend beach front pathway to the entrance of Blackie
Spit
- provide an alternate small, defined day use area for
paddle board rentals/lessons. Limit the operation to roll in/ roll out trailers
as in other jurisdictions.
2. Develop a detailed traffic control action plan
including monitoring
- installation of a monitored traffic controlled
intersection is needed.
- Crescent Road is the only major road crossing 128 St
without active traffic management
3. Continue to advocate for the annual RCMP summer week
end initiative as part of overall park and beach security
4. Rely on regulation and park hours to limit the use of
possible future temporary day use concession facilities.]
There being a
quorum present and due notice of the motion having been given, Michael Eyre
proposed the motion:
“I move that the
report which was prepared by the working group established by the directors of
the CBPOA and presented at the January 2nd meeting by Bob Gray be
accepted and adopted in conjunction with the 1999 Blackie Spit Master Plan as
the current position of the CBPOA regarding the future of Blackie Spit”.
Seconded by Ron Sorensen.
Questions
from the floor.
Is there
anything going on that we’re not happy with?
Parking and congestion, although this has recently been improved with
the installation of organized barriers and blocks. Recommendations are made to
increase the parking and to extend the walking path for pedestrian safety.
The paddle
board rental shack. What’s wrong with that? It takes up car park space in the
summer season and we have problems with it growing in size and not being
removed in a timely manner at the end of the season, in non-compliance with the
contract.
Is the
motion to accept the report or the recommendations? Both.
The vote was
called: 17 for none against motion carried.
Councillor
Annis, in attendance at the meeting, offered to circulate the minute, the
review and the recommendations to the appropriate desks at City Hall.
4) Adoption of the May 1st,
2019, General Meeting minutes.
Proposed: Ron Seconded:
Michael All in favour.
5) Matters arising from the
minutes: None.
6) Updates and correspondence:
Whistle Cessation – Derrick provided an update.
While we have no specific progress to report on our crossings, I can tell
you that whistle cessation is a focus for City Council with work going on.
The City has just successfully
negotiated whistle cessation at the crossing at elevator road – near the south
perimeter road and 96th avenue – with BNSF.
Part of the procedure for
achieving whistle cessation is for the City to issue public notices and this
has recently been done – online and with 4 notices in the local newspapers.
So pressure continues to
be applied.
Some of our members are
wanting to produce more definitive data on the whistles – we know they’re loud
and they’re long – but how loud and for how long.
To this end they are
looking at decibel recorders. They would also like to look at peoples’ sleep
patterns and see if there is any correlation with the train whistles.
So, if any of you using
fit watches are willing to share your data, please contact us.
Ron commented that the
airport noise monitoring organization he is in contact with has a portable
noise measuring device.
7) Directors’ Reports: 7:1) Treasurer. In the absence of the
Treasurer the President reported there is no change in the accounts other than the
recent $1000 donation to the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Station 5.
7:2) Membership. Bruce
reported it’s the time of year to start canvassing again and he has an
excellent team of canvassers signed up once more. A couple of additional canvassers
would be welcome. Areas in need of coverage – S third of O’Hara, Becket, 27th/28th
Ave, NE corner of the membership. Of course anyone can canvass anywhere.
Responding to a question
about timing – Bruce indicated he has distributed packages and is asking for
them back by the end of September
8) New Business: Members at the end of McBride enquired if
speed bumps can be installed as there is speeding occurring. Also, the gate is
being locked later than it should be, one night it was 2 AM. Others talked about noise late at night on
the beach.
Speed bumps will not be
installed on McBride until the final paving associated with this year’s Phase 2
drainage project is done. The work on McBride is scheduled to start any time
now and will proceed Sullivan to Target to Wickson. The Project Manager is Tindi Sekhon and he
welcomes direct contact at THSekhon@surrey.ca
For speeding issues,
parking issues and misbehavior, members indicated that you should phone the
RCMP non-emergency line 604 599
0502 and you may have to keep phoning
it.
9) Call for volunteers. Once again we are in need of volunteers.
Andrew stated that we need names for the positions of Secretary and Treasurer
at the September AGM.
He asked the minutes reflect
that, in the absence of volunteers to fill these positions, there is the
potential of having to reduce the number of meetings to one per year or even
consider winding up the Association.
10) Motion to adjourn: Proposed Ron
Seconded Carolyn.
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